


I'll Do What Must Be Done

by popsicletheduck



Series: Fear of a Witcher [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Bisexual Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, Geralt's feelings are... complicated, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Kidnapping, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Slash, Whump, Witcher racism, as in it looks like there's going to be sex for all of about two minutes, before it abruptly turns into not that, but also you should read the series because please?, could almost be read as a stand alone, he definitely has them but by the gods he doesn't know what to do with them, its complicated okay?, some things are requited and some things are not, there's like one reference to stuff earlier in the series, we'll get there eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsicletheduck/pseuds/popsicletheduck
Summary: When Jaskier is kidnapped after a performance, he'll soon find there's a ticking clock counting down the time he's got left. Geralt might be along to rescue him. That is, if the witcher can realize he's missing in time.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Fear of a Witcher [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619665
Comments: 21
Kudos: 473





	I'll Do What Must Be Done

**Author's Note:**

> Lestovo might be far behind us, but the series that was never supposed to be a series continues! I do have a plan, and at the moment it's looking like it's going to be six parts of various lengths, with the last one possibly being multichapter. I promise we're headed towards some truly juicy stuff (confessions! relationships! tasteful fade to blacks! possible polyamory! far too much projection from yours truly!) but there are a few more people you have to meet first.  
> A special shoutout to LugiaDepression who left such a lovely comment on the last part asking for a continuation that it made me consider a continuation <3  
> Oh, and bonus points if you can guess the major source of inspiration for this fic (I mean, besides the Witcher, obviously)

“I do understand that you’ve got some incredible witcher constitution to go with all that strength and muscle, but some of us are lowly humans who will die of some very avoidable diseases if we spend all night in the rain.”

Jaskier was complaining. Jaskier had been complaining nearly the whole day, since they had woken to the cold drizzle of early spring rain that had only intensified as the hours had gone by. Except now he wasn’t just complaining, he was also arguing. There was a town coming up, but Geralt had been planning on riding through. He didn’t have the coin for an inn and there were still enough hours of daylight that he could put in some more distance before it got dark. Jaskier was having none of that, and Geralt was about ready to gag the bard just for five minutes of quiet.

“Personally, of all the ways I considered dying following around after you, dying of pneumonia was definitely not one of them! Where’s the glory in that, the heroism, the panache?”

“You didn’t have to come.”

Jaskier had been at court for the winter. Geralt had been at Kaer Morhen. Every year he thought the bard would go his way in the spring after being reminded of the comforts that were denied him by trailing after a witcher. And every spring Jaskier found him again. In this moment Geralt was wishing desperately he hadn’t.

Jaskier scoffed. “This is the thanks I get when I’m going to be the ones to get us warm and dry rooms for the night. I know you’ve got the whole lone-wanderer-ruggedly-surviving-the-hard-wilds aesthetic going on, but surely sleeping inside after a day like today won’t ruin it. Might even be good for you. I know it’ll most certainly be good for me.”

Geralt grunted, even as he noticed the way Jaskier’s hands were starting to shake as he gestured wildly along with his words. For all his endless complaining, Geralt knew Jaskier would continue to follow him if he kept going through the town. And Roach would be better off in a stable than in the rain.

“Fine.”

The look of utter shock on Jaskier’s face was worth it for all of about five seconds until smug glee took its place.

“What was that? Did the might White Wolf, the famed Geralt of Rivia actually agree with his humble bard on something? Truly this is one for the history books.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Oh I most certainly will. This is, after all, my most crowning achievement. No amount of fame or honor will outshadow this single moment. Perhaps I should start composing a ballad.

_ Finally the witcher did agree to bed, _

_ Somewhere dry to rest his head-” _

Geralt had stopped listening, the noise of the bard as incessant as the falling rain.

The inn, when they reached it, was a decent size, if a bit rough and in need of some repair. Geralt had certainly slept in worse places. Jaskier pushed through the door with all the drama of his profession before shaking the water from his hair and smiling widely at the innkeeper, a portly older man with blonde hair going grey at the temples.

“Good sir, luck has graced you this day, as you find yourself in the presence of a master bard. For only the cost of two rooms for the night, I will make the very air ring with song the likes of which you have never heard before!”

The reek of fear that came off the man when he set eyes on Geralt was immediate and Geralt was sure they were about to be tossed unceremoniously into the street with a few sharp words about unfeeling mutant bastards. 

But instead he smiled, warmly enough even if there was a bit too much teeth to it. “Of course, of course! And a meal as well, for weary travelers. Doesn’t cost me to be nice, and I’m sure a good song will do us all some good.”

The fear wasn’t going away. In fact, one by one everyone in the inn’s common room came to smell of it as they noticed him. Geralt set his jaw, took a seat in the corner, and ate methodically when the innkeeper’s similarly blonde daughter brought it. There was only so much of that sour tang he could stand. Not for the first time, he wondered if he’d really been right to agree with Jaskier.

Jaskier, who was a peacock even in the dull glow from the fireplace. Who was already several songs in to a performance that could last for hours. Jaskier, who was welcomed with open arms, who was everything he was not.

Geralt stood abruptly, making for the stairs. Another moment in the bard’s presence was a torture he didn’t think he could stand.

Jaskier was in his element. 

Outside the rain still continued to fall, cold with the last remnants of winter’s chill, but inside the inn was warm and noisy and  _ alive _ . The crowd clapped and cheered and sang, generous with their praise and their coin. His fingers danced over his lute strings, his feet danced over the rough floorboards. Alcohol burned in his veins, flushing his cheeks and warming his belly. Jaskier smiled and sang and reveled in the feeling of it all. He could do anything, he was limitless, he was master of his craft.

It was a good night.

The grin was permanent by the time Jaskier collapsed into the small corner table Geralt had claimed earlier in the evening. The coin he’d made would be enough to keep both of them warm and fed for a good while yet. He couldn’t wait to rub it in the witcher’s face. Hah, Jaskier had made enough in a single night to cover a week’s worth of rooms. 

If only Geralt hadn’t stomped off to his room hours ago. His loss for missing one of Jaskier’s best performances in months. Jaskier would just have to regale him with tales of it in the morning.

The thunk of a drink being placed in front of him drew Jaskier back to the present. One of the innkeeper’s daughters was smiling down at him, all charm and invitation. He’d caught the eyes of the blonde one on him hours before, winking at her with a bit of hope for a tumble later on, but this was the other. She was a pretty young thing like her sister, lithe and shapely, dark hair tumbling gracefully past her shoulders, dark eyes roving his body. 

“On the house,” she said, leaning closer to brush a sweat damped curl from his forehead before letting her fingers trail around the curve of his ear and down the side of his neck. “It’s been a long while since we had a proper musician here, master bard.”

“It’s my honor to grace such a fine establishment.”

She leaned closer still, close enough that he could smell her lavender perfume, close enough that he had a very good view of how low her blouse dipped, close enough that she could whisper in his ear.

“I wonder what else that silver tongue of yours could do.”

It was a very good night indeed.

She practically pulled him upstairs, which was encouragement that Jaskier definitely didn’t need. As soon as the door to his room closed she was on him, shoving him back against it and kissing him, rough and desperate. His hands found her waist, trailing up under the edge of her blouse.

“Horny bastard,” she muttered against his lips, her voice practically dripping venom.

Jaskier didn’t even have time to ask before the hilt of a dagger slammed into his temple, sending him tumbling into the black void of unconsciousness. 

Geralt woke with the dawn, a habit so ingrained in him he didn’t actually need the sun to do it. The rooms they’d gotten were tiny and windowless, but he did have to grudgingly admit it was better than spending the night in the rain. He just hoped Jaskier hadn’t drunken all of his night’s earnings and left them without a way to pay for them. It was tempting, Geralt decided as he dressed, to just leave the bard behind. Jaskier would catch up in time, he always did, but a few days away from his incessant whining sounded like a good idea.

Against his better judgment he stopped to knock on Jaskier’s door on the way downstairs.

“Jaskier,” he called.

No reply.

He knocked harder. “Jaskier.”

Not even a groan of protest at the noise. Which meant he’d gotten truly drunk and was still deep in an alcohol induced coma.

Giving up his companion as a lost cause, Geralt made his way to the common area. It was deserted this early in the morning with even the innkeeper missing. The only other soul was a blonde young woman who looked similar enough to be his daughter, scrubbing tracked in mud from the floor on her hands and knees. And cursing under her breath.

“Thrice damned fool,” she muttered, far too quiet to be heard by anyone lacking a witcher’s hearing. “He was young and pretty and gods, the way he smiled. And  _ that _ was what he got. I’ll be singing his songs for weeks. Not that it’ll do him any good.”

“What happened to the bard?” Geralt asked.

She started, whipping around towards him with wide eyes before her expression hardened into something bitter. “He went to bed with my sister. I’d not be waiting for him, master witcher. Like as not you’ll not be seeing him again.”

Geralt snorted. Jaskier left lovers in his wake with the careless abandon of a child picking flowers. But try as he might to ignore it, something about the interaction left him unsettled. There’d been a tremor in the girl’s words, a tremble to her hand he couldn’t place.

Perhaps he could wait just for a bit. It was possible the storm would break soon enough. Roach would be pleased to avoid more time in the rain. But as he waited, Geralt’s senses were trained for humming and the familiar tread of light footfalls on the stairs.

Consciousness filtered back in slowly, and Jaskier groaned at the thudding in his skull he could feel down in his teeth. Hangovers were the worst, and every time he swore he wasn’t going to drink that much again, and every time he did anyway and paid for it the next morning with a killer headache and an extra grumpy Geralt. Jaskier shifted, trying to curl deeper into bed and hopefully fall back asleep until the pain had dulled some, but a strange clinking sound drew his attention. Metal on metal, and that couldn’t be right because he was in bed. But he couldn’t find the blankets either. And that wasn’t a mattress underneath him. It was dirt.

Memory slammed back into him with all the kindness of a punch in the face. He’d found himself a lovely bedwarmer for the night only to be knocked out for his troubles. Jaskier shoved himself upright, prying his eyes open and trying to ignore the way his vision swam to get a look at where he was.

It seemed to be, upon inspection, a hole in the ground. Dirt walls and a dirt ceiling just high enough to sit under and a dirt floor that sloped gently upwards. A few tree roots curled along the edges and here and there dampness from the rain was seeping through. All told a rather unpleasant place to wake up, and Jaskier was pulling himself together to crawl out when he heard that sound again, clearer now that he was fully conscious. It sounded like the rattling of a chain.

Throat tightening, he looked down to find a manacle secured tight around one ankle, only a few inches of chain before it disappeared into floor. 

Oh fuck.

Experimentally, Jaskier tried digging his finger into the dirt around the chain. If it didn’t go too far down maybe he could dig it out.

“Leave it,” a sharp voice commanded. “I sunk the damn thing two feet into the ground, it’s not coming out.”

Stepping into the tunnel, silhouetted against the grey light of the forest in rain beyond, was the woman from the night before.

Except she didn’t look like she did the night before, smiling and pink cheeked and pretty. Her silky black hair had been pulled back into a severe bun, her low cut blouse and skirt exchanged for a tunic and trousers and a few piecemeal pieces of leather armor that had clearly been meant for someone larger and haphazardly altered to fit her smaller frame. An oilcloth wrapped bow and quiver peeked over one shoulder. Mud and dirt coated her boots and flecked her skin. And her dark eyes were sharp and cold as winter frost.

Jaskier shivered, as much finding that gaze falling on him as the realization that his clothes were as rain soaked as hers.

“Listen, I know some people have kinks, and that’s fine, you know? But uh, safe and informed consent is really important, and-”

He wasn’t expecting the punch, and even in the tight quarters it was strong enough to snap his head to the side. Jaskier tasted blood, the copper doing nothing to ease the ringing in his head.

“Shut up,” the woman snarled. “Just because I have to whore myself out to get you bastard men to follow me, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Jaskier spat crimson, said, “Right, point taken. If you don’t mind me asking then, why do any of this?”

She smiled, and it didn’t reach her eyes. “Because it’s nearly the full moon, and she’s hungry.”

Two hours past dawn and there was no sign of the rain letting up any time soon. There had also been no sign of Jaskier.

The disquiet that had seized Geralt’s mind hadn’t lessened, but rationality was beginning to win out. Jaskier had drank too much, took some pretty girl to bed, and her sister was jealous. It wouldn’t exactly be anything new. Besides, the innkeeper had been staring daggers at him ever since he’d arrived, his fear stronger than ever, and Geralt wasn’t one to linger where he clearly wasn’t welcome. Jaskier would find him again once he was finished with his current bedmate.

Roach snorted as he approached, clearly displeased at the idea of leaving the stable for the wet outside. 

Geralt hummed and stroked her neck. “It’ll be summer before you know it, and then we’ll both be wishing for a little rain.”

He was only part of the way through saddling Roach when he felt it. It was like a prickling along the back of his neck, the awareness that someone was watching him. Turning, he found the blonde daughter stepping into the stable, carefully cradling-

It felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. Jaskier’s lute. His prized possession, the only thing he never went anywhere without. For a moment Geralt almost felt like he was being presented with a corpse. She had his pack too, looking as though it had been hastily repacked, a sleeve of deep green silk dangling out the top.

“How do you have that?” he snarled.

She didn’t flinch. She looked him dead in the eye and held his gaze, her jaw tight. “I have a contract for you, master witcher.” The pouch she pulled out clanked. “And the coin to pay for it.”

“She? She’s hungry? Hold on, you’re not planning on feeding me to, to some monster?” Jaskier’s voice cracked higher than he would’ve liked. Geralt might’ve threatened to use him as monster bait a few times, but there was a distinct difference between an exasperated friend rolling his eyes and this dead eyed smile. “What if, and just hear me out please, I present you with a different option? I’m here with a witcher and-”

“No,” she cut him off sharply. “I know who you came with. He can’t get involved.”

“This isn’t more of that absolutely idiotic hatred of witchers, is it? I mean, I get that they can be a bit creepy at times but surely having someone come and kill whatever man-eating nasty you’ve got in your woods is preferable to kidnapping people to feed to it?”

Jaskier was good at reading people. A necessary skill in his profession, honed by the fact that he spent most of his hours with the world’s least expressive being. So he didn’t miss the flicker of something like longing and something like grief that crossed the woman’s features before a detached annoyance slammed down again.

“You can’t kill the monster, you can’t pay me to let you go, you can’t promise to fuck me to let you go and I don’t want to anyway.” She rattled off the list as if she had said it a thousand times before. “You see, bard, it comes down to a very simple choice. Either you die, or I do. And I made peace long ago with the fact that I am enough of a selfish bastard that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that I’m the one who walks away from this alive.”

He let his fingers drum against the dirt, tapping out the rhythm of snatches of song. She’d shown her hand, even if she hadn’t meant to. She wasn’t the blackhearted stone wall she wanted him to see. Jaskier’s talent was his voice and his charm. If he couldn’t make them work for him in this situation, well. Then he didn’t deserve an ounce of his reputation.

She’d settled against one of the walls of the tunnel, her fingers idly toying with the hilt of a dagger sheathed at her side, staring blankly at nothing.

“Can I at least know your name?” he asked. “Doesn’t seem fair to go to my death not even knowing who I’m dying to save.”

The sigh was long and low, bitter and aching. “Don’t do this,” she said, her voice heavy. “Don’t try and get on my good side, guilt me into letting you go. It just ends badly for both of us.”

“How many times have you done this?”

“Enough.” And then softer, so soft he almost didn’t catch it. “Too many.”

From beyond the hole Jaskier could hear the drum of the rain, pattering against the dirt and rustling the leaves. It would’ve been peaceful if his current circumstance was a bit different. A thousand words danced on the tip of his tongue, each vying over the last in his bid for freedom. Could he convince her to let him go? He was good with his words but she seemed more than a bit stubborn. But surely he only had to stall until Geralt figured out where he was. Geralt wouldn’t let him get eaten by a monster. Even if Geralt was mad at him, preventing people from getting eaten by monsters was practically his job description.

If Geralt knew he was missing. If Geralt even knew there was a monster. No, there was no guarantee in that direction. Hope, maybe, but no guarantee. Jaskier would have to act like he was on his own, and cross his fingers that-

“It’s Edalynn,” the woman said suddenly, still staring at the wall. “My name is Edalynn.”

“I am Julian Alfred Pankratz, although I mostly go by Jaskier.”

She snorted. “That sounds like a noble name, but you don’t smell like a noble.”

“An unfortunate side effect of traveling with a witcher. Besides, I gave up the whole nobility thing to travel, have adventures, see the world.”

That finally got her to turn to look at him. “Have you? Seen the world, that is.”

“Weren’t you listening to the songs last night?”

“You were singing about the witcher.”

Jaskier waved away the words. “But I had to be there to record his deeds. I’ve traveled with him all across the Continent, from the highest mountains to the lowest dungeons, meeting kings and beggars, beasts and devils.”

He didn’t have his lute, and he was chained in a dirt hole in the middle of nowhere facing the terrifying prospect of being something’s dinner. But Jaskier was a performer at heart, and by the gods, perform was what he was going to do.

“Where’s the bard?” Geralt growled.

“In the woods. I don’t know where exactly, I’ve never been. My sister, Edalynn, she has him. I do know that if you find the monster, you’re like to find him as well.”

“Alive?” The question twisted something uncomfortably in his chest but he had to know.

Her jaw tightened, her fingers spasming against the lute. “If you’re quick about it.”

Pieces settled into place: Jaskier’s warm welcome, his subsequent disappearance, the lute in the girl’s arms. “You’ve been feeding people to whatever’s out there and stealing their belongings.”

Disgust twisted her features, made her look far older than she was. “It was my father’s plan, it was his from the very beginning. Edalynn and I are caught up in it in our own ways. But I can’t do it anymore. Whatever it costs, I want it to be over.”

“You know what this monster is?”

“Werewolf.”

“Hmm.” Geralt didn’t voice the suspicion that was growing in the back of his mind. Let her keep what secrets she felt she had to. It would end the same for him.

He pulled off Roach’s saddle and tightened his cloak around him. Tracking through the wood would be easier done on foot.

The girl made to grab the edge of his cloak as he walked past, pulling her hand back as if she’d been burned when he turned to look at her.

“My sister,” she said softly. “She’s gone hard, but it’s not her fault. Don’t judge her too harsh. She’s done what she had to.”

Without a word, without a backwards glance, with only the slightest twitch of sodden fabric to pull the hood over his head, Geralt stepped out into the rain.

He didn’t choose sides. But he did kill monsters.

Edalynn was an attentive audience once Jaskier had managed to pull her from her shell, listening raptly with her chin resting on her knee. For the first time Jaskier saw how young she truly was, just barely an adult really, probably not any older than he had been when he’d first found Geralt, and desperate for anything outside of her life in a small town. Like hundreds before her and hundreds after her. Except for the whole kidnapping him as monster food thing, that certainly made her stand out.

She didn’t interrupt, not once, not as the grey outside darkened from ash to pewter, the rain slowing to a gentle drizzle. She didn’t interrupt, not until Jaskier was midway through a tale of Geralt’s successful slaying of a werewolf outside of Tretov.

“They’re monsters, right?” she asked, cutting off his gruesome description of the beast that was more or less accurate, given that he’d been about a hundred yards back from the showdown.

“Werewolves? Of course. Transformed by a foul curse into flesh-hungry, ravenous-”

“They’re not people, though. Not anymore. Even though they were people once?”

Jaskier suddenly had the distinct impression of standing on the edge of a chasm too deep to see the bottom. There was far, far more to that question than met the eye.

“No,” he said slowly, an uncomfortable thought growing steadily louder in his head, “no they’re not people anymore. Edalynn, are you…?”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t look away from her, as if he expected her to transform right then in front of him. Bones cracking, fur sprouting from flesh, teeth sharpening to tear out his throat and rend the meat from his bones. Jaskier was so lost in his vision of terror that he almost missed her words.

“Not me.” She wasn’t looking at him again, her gaze drawn out to the murky evening beyond. “Galena. The woman who raised me.”

“The one you were planning on feeding me to. You’re planning on feeding me to your mother?” A bit of panic colored his tone. What spider web had he accidentally gotten caught up in?

Edalynn snorted, drawing the dagger from her side to stare at its blade. “Not my mother, no more than Thiery is my father. My mother died giving birth to me in that shithole of an inn. Galena raised me. Begrudgingly, sure, treating me like a servant while she pampered her own little girl, sure. But she did raise me.”

The memory of that moment of longing and grief on her face. 

“You want her dead,” Jaskier said.

“I want to stop kidnapping people every fucking month for her to eat! Every fucking month for six fucking years!” The dagger flew from her hand, spinning through the air to impact hilt first against a tree beyond and tumble to the forest floor. Edalynn snarled. “You said it yourself, she’s a monster. It’s not murder to kill her, it’s survival.”

For a moment Jaskier felt the air still in his lungs. He was close, godsdamn he was so close. Pouring every ounce of sincerity he had into his words he said, “Edalynn, if you let me go I promise I’ll go get Geralt and I’ll bring him back here. He can help.”

She stalked out of the hole without a word. In the dim light Jaskier could just see her crouching to pick up her dagger, lingering just a moment with her hand braced against the tree. He could just see the shaking of her shoulders, the dagger glinting in the gloom before she slammed it into wood and ripped it out again. He held his breath and prayed to any god that might be listening. 

But when Edalynn walked back in, her face was the same empty blank it was when he had first come to. And her voice was flat as she said, “I don’t have the coin for a witcher. Besides, if Galena doesn’t get fed then Thiery will whip my hide and send me out as dinner for my failure to keep his wife sated.”

“We can figure out payment and you could hide here until it all blows over. Edalynn-”

“We’ve been over this before, bard. It’s you or me. It’s not going to be me. It’s time to go.”

“Edalynn-”

She punched him in the stomach, driving any remaining protest from him and leaving him gasping as she pulled out a length of rope and bound his hands. He tried to kick, uselessly, pointlessly, as she went for his ankles, but he couldn’t get enough space to put any decent force behind it and she batted it aside easily. 

“I told you not to make this harder than it had to be,” she said softly, an echo of regret in the words. “Told that to Mariane when I saw the way she was looking at you last night. No sense in dreaming of castles in clouds you can’t reach. You just end up disappointed in the end.”

“Please,” Jaskier begged, trying to suck air back into his lungs. “Don’t do this.”

Edalynn didn’t spare him another word as she dragged him out into the night. She’d left just enough rope when she’d tied his ankles that he could hobble, and a spare length between his wrists that she pulled like a leash. In the growing darkness it was all Jaskier could do to keep up and keep his feet. He had no doubt she’d just keep dragging if he fell.

Fear gripped his heart. Geralt hadn’t come. It’d been nearly a full day since he’d disappeared and Geralt hadn’t come. Jaskier didn’t blame him but fuck he wished Geralt was there. Monsters were significantly less scary when you had a witcher at your side.

But now Jaskier was alone, stumbling towards his death, a silent executioner and gut wrenching terror his only companions.

The rain had lightened to a drizzle by late afternoon, but by then the damage had already been done. Any scent trail Jaskier and the girl, Edalynn, would’ve left had long been washed away, leaving Geralt to track by sight only. A frustrating task when he had nothing more specific to go on than ‘in the woods’ somewhere. And this Edalynn clearly had been trying to hide her tracks. Perhaps she knew her sister would betray her. Perhaps she had been scared by the proximity of a witcher.

Geralt would show her exactly what she had to be afraid of.

It was nearly an hour of careful searching among tree roots and muddy puddles before he found his first mark, the scuff of something heavy dragged through the dirt, too deep for the rain to have washed it completely away. Heavy enough to be a body. 

Geralt knelt, his fingers skimming the edge of the mark. Jaskier had been unconscious, but beyond that there was no way to tell what condition he was in; the rain had washed away any blood along with scent. That uncomfortable twisting in his chest was back again. The bard attracted trouble like flies to honey. One day Geralt would be too late to save him from it.

He was surprised by the intensity of the desire to have today not be that day.

Once he had the trail it was easier to follow: half a footprint where Edalynn had stumbled here, a loose thread the same blue Jaskier had been wearing snagged against a bush there. It was still slow, but he was gaining, he knew that.

He wouldn’t be too late. Jaskier would be fine, and he’d smile and laugh and complain too much and sing too loudly. He would survive, because the possibility that he wouldn’t was something Geralt found himself refusing to consider.

The moon was just starting to rise, huge and pale on the horizon, peeking between the trees and the scattering wisps of retreating clouds, shreds of gossamer painted silver by the moonlight. In the clearing the first stems of early wildflowers shifted slightly in the breeze, bright spring green faded to shades of grey in the dark, lingering droplets of rain glistening like jewels on their leaves.

It would’ve been godsdamn  _ poetic _ if Jaskier could’ve just stopped shivering. His soaked clothes clung to his skin, and if this werewolf didn’t eat him he was most certainly going to catch pneumonia and die anyway.

Edalynn had disappeared after tying the spare rope from his hands around a piece of stump in the middle of the clearing, although given that her last words had been ‘if you try to escape I’ll put an arrow through your leg’ Jaskier assumed she was still around somewhere. But she’d made her position incredibly clear; she wouldn’t be any help. Jaskier wanted to hate her, but she’d shown him too much. She was just a kid, stuck in a shit situation. It didn’t change the fact that he’d be dead come morning, but Jaskier figured he could at least do her the decency of not cursing her name as he died.

A gust of wind shook the branches of the trees and he ducked his head, trying to pull into himself as much as possible. It didn’t help much, but it was something.

“It’s spring, it’s supposed to be  _ warm, _ ” he muttered through chattering teeth. “Didn’t you get the memo? Warm and bright and definitely not the season for getting eaten by a werewolf. If there is a season for getting eaten by a werewolf I think it’d be fall. Plenty of poetry to dying in fall. Possibly winter but that feels a bit cliche. The only dying that’s supposed to happen in spring is, I don’t know, pining lovers. Which I suppose I… might…”

Jaskier let the rambling trail off as he caught a sound that for a moment he thought, he hoped, was the creaking of half bare branches. But then his head was snapping up, because it wasn’t that, it was a growl, low and rumbling.

Just stepping into the clearing, a dark shape against the shadows, was the werewolf.

Backing away as far as his restraints would let him, ignoring the way the rope bit into his wrists, he felt his mind start to race. There had to be a way out, there had to be, because he couldn’t die like this, not now, gods he wasn’t even thirty yet. And Geralt… he couldn’t leave Geralt. 

The werewolf paced closer. It stood easily eight feet tall, bulging and misshapen muscles covered in patchy fur, too large fingers tipped in even larger claws, spittled dripping between sharpened fangs bared from its growl.

Jaskier tried to speak, despite the fact his heart had decided to move to his throat. “Listen, I really think this whole thing is, is just a misunderstanding, and if we could maybe just-”

“Jaskier!” And had the fear already started to mess with his head or was that Geralt yelling? “Get down!”

He dropped, and fire shot over his head and slammed into the werewolf’s chest and truly burnt werewolf hair was something he didn’t need to know the smell of. It snarled in pain and fury, and Jaskier was just opening his mouth to say something to Geralt about his impeccable sense of timing, was just turning to see him when claws raked across his back and he screamed instead. Suddenly he wasn’t cold anymore, he was burning. Distantly he wondered if somehow Geralt had accidentally caught him in another blast or if that was just the heat of his own blood. He gasped into the soaked earth, each breath ripping through his throat like a sob. 

He could hear the sounds of battle, the werewolf’s roars of pain and Geralt’s matching snarls. Jaskier thought he could almost see it anyway, the witcher a thing of shadow and silver in the darkness, inhuman grace as he moved without fear against a monster of nightmare made flesh. It was poetic, he thought with a soft sigh. Geralt was a thing of poetry. Jaskier could’ve written a thousand songs about him.

A scream drew Jaskier from his scattered musing, something edged with a humanity that set his teeth on edge. For one heart stopping moment he couldn’t tell if it had been the monster or Geralt. But then there was a strong hand on his shoulder carefully rolling him onto his side and Geralt was on his knees staring down at him, his eyes still pitch black. Which was honestly a bit creepy and a bit extremely hot.

“I was going to say your timing was perfect but I think you were maybe just a bit off this time.” Jaskier smiled anyway. The pain had gone a bit distant.

“You’re going into shock,” Geralt rumbled, cutting through the rope still tying him to the stump.

“Am I? Honestly it doesn’t seem so bad.” Nothing was quite so bad when Geralt was there. Not even the way the darkness of the night seemed to swirl and deepen, pulling him closer.

“Jaskier. Stay awake.”

Jaskier hummed a response, and then started to laugh because that was Geralt’s thing, wasn’t it? But his laughter cut off into a bitten off cry as his back flared with pain.

A soft grunt from Geralt that might’ve almost been something like an apology. “You’re lucky, it didn’t hit anything vital.”

“It doesn’t feel like luck from where I am,” Jaskier gasped. It felt like hell, all brimstone and never ending flames of torment.

“Here.” A vial placed between his lips as Geralt cupped the back of his head. “Drink.”

Whatever it was, it was bitter, and Jaskier gagged as it went down. “What was that?”

“Painkiller.”

“I thought your potions would kill me.”

Without warning Geralt picked him up, settling him over one pauldron. His hum of response was deep enough that Jaskier felt it through his chest.

“I started carrying supplies designed for humans, after.”

“After?” The word was out of Jaskier’s mouth nearly the same time he realized.

After Lestovo.

“You didn’t have to,” he whispered. His head felt wrong, far too light to match the weight of the rest of him, but this was important.

“I did,” Geralt replied.

There was no dry ground to settle on, but a few bursts of igni at least took a patch of it from soaking to merely damp. Geralt started a fire too, though the light scalded his eyes until the potion he’d taken had worn off. He didn’t like the way Jaskier kept shivering, his fancy clothes stuck to him with blood and water where they weren’t torn.

The bard drifted as Geralt patched him up, cleaning the wounds with an herbal solution and bandaging them. When he was awake he rambled, circuitous nonsense about witchers and werewolves and the poetry of the moon. When he was out Geralt kept a hand against his chest to feel the rise and fall of his breath while his eyes traced the pale white scars across Jaskier’s back. He’d have four new ones soon.

It was like a prickling along the back of his neck, the awareness that someone was watching him. Geralt turned, his hand already reaching for his weapon.

At the very edge of the firelight was a woman, no, a girl really, in patchwork leathers with a bow over one shoulder. In one smooth movement Geralt was on his feet, naked sword in hand and a growl rumbling in his throat. Edalynn didn’t flinch, but she did take a half step back as fear rolled off her like rot off a corpse.

“Geralt.”

He looked down into Jaskier’s eyes, hazy with drugs and over bright the fire’s glow. Jaskier, who he had almost left behind to death. Jaskier, who he came so close to never seeing again.

“Geralt, she’s not a threat,” he said.

Geralt didn’t move, his gaze flicking back to the half shadowed figure. The words of Edalynn’s sister in the stable came back to him.  _ “She’s gone hard, but it’s not her fault. Don’t judge her too harsh.”  _ He wasn’t supposed to judge at all. But there was that twisting in his chest still, settling among something heavier and hotter like red hot steel buried in his lungs. She was nothing, and she had almost taken-

“Is he going to die?” she asked.

Jaskier laughed, the sound too bright in the tension. “Not tonight. Geralt’s here.”

He almost hadn’t been. He’d almost left and then he’d almost been too late. Jaskier was alive and laughing despite him, because of him, despite her.

“Are you going to kill me?” None of her fear showed in her voice. Flat, and edged with something nearing a challenge, like she’d asked this question before and was still waiting for an answer.

Geralt slid his sword back into its sheath. “No.”

He killed monsters. Whatever she was, it wasn’t that.

“I’m glad we can all be reasonable about this attempt on my life,” Jaskier said, completely lacking in any sarcasm. “Edalynn, you’re all wet too. Sit by the fire, dry off.”

Edalynn hesitated a moment before shuffling forward a few steps and sitting down, drawing her knees into her chest. Making herself as small a target as possible.

They sat like that for a long time as the night drew on, the moon rising above the treetops to add its own silvery light to the gold of the fire. Jaskier slept, his head against Geralt’s thigh. Geralt didn’t. Edalynn didn’t either, her gaze locked on the fire.

“You know he loves you,” she said suddenly, breaking hours of silence. “When he was trying to save his own life, he told me stories of you.”

“He’s a bard.”

Edalynn shook her head, wistfulness in her voice. “It was different. He knows the things you’ve done, and he loves you anyway.”

Jaskier didn’t know everything he’d done. There were whole decades of his life the bard knew nothing about, and Geralt was going to keep it that way. But then… were those decades so different from what he did now, with Jaskier trailing along after him? His life had followed the same predictable rhythms for years. Did Jaskier have to know everything if he knew enough?

Geralt shook himself out of meaningless musings. It didn’t matter, because whatever Jaskier wanted out of him, he couldn’t give it. At least the bard had sense enough to realize that, even if he didn’t have the sense to leave.

Quiet descended again, with only the distant dripping of water onto wet earth and the shifting of leaves. 

When Edalynn’s eyes met his they were hard, obsidian in the firelight. “I’d suggest you not go back, witcher. They’ll kill you if they realize what you’ve done.”

He scoffed. “Takes more than a handful of angry townsfolk to kill me.”

“They’ll kill him.” She jerked her chin towards Jaskier.

“No. I won’t let them.”

When Jaskier woke the next morning to a proper sun not hidden behind sodden grey, Edalynn was already gone. For a moment he wondered if she’d really been there at all, his memories from the night before a haze of blood and darkness and Geralt. Then the returning image of Geralt with his sword drawn, battle tension in his shoulders and a sick feeling settled in Jaskier’s stomach.

“Geralt,” he asked quietly, as the other made ready to leave their makeshift camp, “where’s the girl?”

“Left earlier,” the witcher grunted. 

“Did she say where she was going?”

Geralt paused in putting out the last embers to turn and look at him, his eyes hard and his brow furrowed. “Away. Why do you care?”

Jaskier sighed, letting his fingers trail against the damp ground. “She’s just a kid, Geralt.”

“Doesn’t change what she did.”

“No, but it does change how I feel about it.”

A snort. “You’re just soft for a pretty face.”

Jaskier watched Geralt, the way the dappled sunlight fell across him, turning his hair brilliant white and his eyes a warmer golden than flame. The way he moved with such precision and grace even through the smallest tasks. The curve of his cheek and the line of his lips.

“Maybe I am,” he whispered.

The trek back to the town was hell. Even the blessing of a clear day became a minor comfort. His back ached with every step, pained exhaustion weighing with every step. He nearly cheered when the back of the inn came into view, would’ve if he hadn’t already been so tired. He was ready for a bath, for dry clothes that weren’t shredded, to be free of the dirt and blood that were smeared everywhere. 

But when he turned to Geralt, a smile on his lips, the witcher was tense, his eyes flicking across the building as if waiting for something to attack.

“Geralt? What’s wrong?”

“Stay close. And if you’re capable of it, stay quiet.”

“How long have we known each other now, Geralt? Almost a decade? Have I ever been quiet ever? Really, you’d think at this point that you’d just learn to stop asking.”

That said, Jaskier did try to keep his voice at least pitched down some. His stomach was knotting uncomfortably. Hadn’t Edalynn said something about Thiery, the innkeeper? He’d been in on it. But the werewolf was dead. Surely the threat was over.

Roach snorted as they approached, slipping into the stable and Jaskier had about a dozen questions on the tip of his tongue when he saw all their gear already tucked into her stall. But all of them fell away when he heard the shouting. It was too muffled by walls and distance for him to make out any words, but he could tell the tone, and it was furious.

But a witcher’s hearing, he knew, far surpassed his own measly human abilities.

“What’s going on?”

Geralt didn’t pause from saddling Roach, and if Jaskier didn’t know better he’d almost say he was hurrying. “It’s not our concern.”

“Geralt, what’s happening?”

He wouldn’t meet Jaskier’s eyes, no matter how the bard shifted around. “The innkeeper and his daughter are arguing. She paid me to kill the werewolf.”

The shouting got louder, high pitched words dissolving into a cry of pain.

Jaskier wasn’t a hero. He knew he wasn’t even always kind. He’d seen a lot of the world, and he knew it wasn’t always pretty, and often enough he was willing enough to sit by and let the worst of it roll along just out of view. But he saw Edalynn’s fear masked as fury and this time he didn’t want to.

“We have to do something.” 

“It’s not our business,” Geralt replied, his voice flat.

“It is our business! It’s happening because of us! Just go in and straighten him out a bit and then we can be on our way. Please, Geralt.”

Geralt finally met his gaze then. And Jaskier knew even after all the time he’d spent trailing after him that he didn’t know everything about Geralt, but even then he was shocked to find he couldn’t place the look in those amber eyes.

“Witchers shouldn’t play at being white knights,” he said, low and final. And without another word, he led Roach out, leaving Jaskier with no choice but to stumble after him.

They weren’t five steps from the stables when the door to the inn slammed open with Thiery on the doorstep, red in the face with rage.

“Cock sucking whore’s son!” he howled, flinging the tankard in his hand.

Geralt barely even stumbled as it struck him in the shoulder, reaching back to grab Jaskier and yank him forward.

“Keep your head down,” he muttered, “and keep walking.”

Other patrons spilled out behind the innkeeper, similarly enraged, similarly armed. And when they ran out of tankards and glassware and one entire chair that Geralt just managed to shove both of them out of the way of, they started with stones. Soon there was a steady thudding like hail all around them as more and more of the town joined in, furious insults thrown along with the projectiles.

_ Murderer. _

_ Mutant. _

_ Bastard. _

_ Devil’s spawn. _

Sheltered between Geralt behind him and Roach to one side, Jaskier was a reasonably small target. 

Geralt took the brunt of it. 

Jaskier still yelped when a lucky throw clipped his ribs, not hard enough to break but certainly hard enough to bruise. Fear flooded him, potent as strong ale. It wasn’t the first time he’d left with Geralt under a shower of stones, but those had been a few angry villagers, sometimes drunk, always ready to see them gone. This… this was a stoning. This was a mob. This was intent to kill. 

Geralt’s hand light on his back was a steadying presence.

“Keep walking,” he repeated.

For once, Jaskier bit his tongue and did as Geralt said.

After a few minutes that felt like hours they had passed through the town, and with a sigh of relief that set his side on fire Jaskier realized no one was following them.

“I thought we were dead,” he admitted.

The only response he got was a quiet hum.

The adrenaline of yet another near death experience was already starting to fade and his previous injuries were beginning to reassert themselves. It was barely past midday and already Jaskier was eager to stop for the night. It would be a long day, that was sure.

Caught up in his own exhaustion he realized he’d taken a few steps away from Geralt, who had stopped dead in the center of the road.

“I know you’re there,” the witcher said.

A slight rustle from the undergrowth that Jaskier would’ve had no hope of hearing before, and then stepping from the brush along the side of the road was Edalynn. Her bow was in her hand, her expression locked behind her eyes.

“You survived,” she said, her voice as difficult to read as her face.

Jaskier tried to smile and didn’t quite manage it. “We do have a tendency to do that.”

She stared at him, long and searching. Whatever she was looking for, Jaskier had a feeling that she found it. With a small nod to him and to Geralt, she turned to move back into the forest.

“Wait,” Jaskier called after her, “what are you going to do?”

She paused for just a moment, looking back at him over her shoulder. “The same as you. Survive.”

It was later, bedded down next to the soft glow of embers, arms tucked under his head and listening to the slight, barely there sound of Geralt’s breathing, that Jaskier allowed himself to shudder over her words. He didn’t want to just survive. He wanted to  _ live _ . 

Letting his head turn, his gaze fell on the shadowed form of his witcher, still as stone in sleep. Darkness edged in light, and wasn’t that just right? Black armor hiding the bruises of a world that stoned him just for doing his job, white hair dyed crimson from his own blood. He’d survived, and it killed Jaskier to see it. He’d shook off Jaskier’s concerns, told him he knew how to shield himself. But there was surviving and there was living. There was the necessity of shielding yourself and there was the freedom of walking unscathed. There was doing what you had to and there was doing what you wanted to.

One day, Jaskier thought as sleep stole over him, he’d show Geralt the second. Even if it was the last thing he did.


End file.
